Hello,
Seeing as every thread on these forums are always so negative I thought I'd post a positive experience that I just had with Apple.
First of all, I think it's worth mentioning that things break. Full stop. So what matters here is what is being done to reduce breaking rates and to support those who have broken gear.
I had a 2008 Macbook Pro, and at the same time, a HP pavillion laptop.
Both had an 8600m GT GPU, and both failed withing 2 months of each other.
To this day, no-one at HP seemed to care about the recall, and my macbook pro had been fixed for almost 3 years now, still operating 100%.
I then bought a 2011 macbook pro. Alas, 3 weeks ago, I started to get display issues! Resolution kept changing, pink artifacts etc etc. Not good. I also had a gig that Friday and that added to my frustrations (I use my Macbooks to run Logic and Mainstage). Not wanting to make anything worse, I closed the laptop and didnt use it again until Friday. Meanwhile, I wrote an email to Tim Cook, politely telling him 'hey, I know it's not entirely your fault, but something needs to be done about your GPU issues here...' I didn't really expect a reply, I just felt like telling somebody at Apple at that point.
The next day, I received a phone call from an Apple rep calling on behalf of the executive office. She asked me what my problem is and I told her, and she told me to take the Macbook to an Apple store to get it fixed - all costs will be covered. I was pleasantly surprised! (She had gotten hold of my details through my @me.com email address that I had used to email Tim.
I didn't go to the Apple store as my gig was that night and since the Macbook was working fine (the issues were intermittent, as is always the case when GPUs start failing), I didn't bother going to the Apple store for several weeks.
2 days ago however, my Macbook failed to boot, and since I have another gig next week, I decided to go to the Apple store yesterday.
At my genius appointment, the genius said that it turns out, my harddrive is also broken and the genius is unable to confirm the GPU issue on my mac. At that point, my iPhone rang - it was the Apple rep who I had been in contact with! She asked to speak to the genius I was assigned with. After 2 or so minutes, the genius' looked at his iPad and told me that all repairs have been approved and that both my harddrive and the logic board will be replaced.
Today, I am going back to the Apple store to pick up my newly fixed MBP as I had just received the ready for pick up email.
Look, I understand that my case is a special case - I do not expect Tim Cook to respond to everybody's emails. I kind of got a free pass. However, I now know for sure that the next time I get a Mac, I will get Apple Care. Especially if I'm using the Mac for mission critical purposes like on-stage use. If my Mac had failed closer to a gig date and I hadn't had a response from Tim, that's $1000 out of my pocket...just like that...
I am hard-pressed however, to name another company with better, or just as good customer service.
Phil
Seeing as every thread on these forums are always so negative I thought I'd post a positive experience that I just had with Apple.
First of all, I think it's worth mentioning that things break. Full stop. So what matters here is what is being done to reduce breaking rates and to support those who have broken gear.
I had a 2008 Macbook Pro, and at the same time, a HP pavillion laptop.
Both had an 8600m GT GPU, and both failed withing 2 months of each other.
To this day, no-one at HP seemed to care about the recall, and my macbook pro had been fixed for almost 3 years now, still operating 100%.
I then bought a 2011 macbook pro. Alas, 3 weeks ago, I started to get display issues! Resolution kept changing, pink artifacts etc etc. Not good. I also had a gig that Friday and that added to my frustrations (I use my Macbooks to run Logic and Mainstage). Not wanting to make anything worse, I closed the laptop and didnt use it again until Friday. Meanwhile, I wrote an email to Tim Cook, politely telling him 'hey, I know it's not entirely your fault, but something needs to be done about your GPU issues here...' I didn't really expect a reply, I just felt like telling somebody at Apple at that point.
The next day, I received a phone call from an Apple rep calling on behalf of the executive office. She asked me what my problem is and I told her, and she told me to take the Macbook to an Apple store to get it fixed - all costs will be covered. I was pleasantly surprised! (She had gotten hold of my details through my @me.com email address that I had used to email Tim.
I didn't go to the Apple store as my gig was that night and since the Macbook was working fine (the issues were intermittent, as is always the case when GPUs start failing), I didn't bother going to the Apple store for several weeks.
2 days ago however, my Macbook failed to boot, and since I have another gig next week, I decided to go to the Apple store yesterday.
At my genius appointment, the genius said that it turns out, my harddrive is also broken and the genius is unable to confirm the GPU issue on my mac. At that point, my iPhone rang - it was the Apple rep who I had been in contact with! She asked to speak to the genius I was assigned with. After 2 or so minutes, the genius' looked at his iPad and told me that all repairs have been approved and that both my harddrive and the logic board will be replaced.
Today, I am going back to the Apple store to pick up my newly fixed MBP as I had just received the ready for pick up email.
Look, I understand that my case is a special case - I do not expect Tim Cook to respond to everybody's emails. I kind of got a free pass. However, I now know for sure that the next time I get a Mac, I will get Apple Care. Especially if I'm using the Mac for mission critical purposes like on-stage use. If my Mac had failed closer to a gig date and I hadn't had a response from Tim, that's $1000 out of my pocket...just like that...
I am hard-pressed however, to name another company with better, or just as good customer service.
Phil
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